Training & Capacity Building
SMA Consulting can provide training to businesses, corporations, government entities, schools, universities, state and local law enforcement personnel, environmental organizations, and non-governmental organizations.
Throughout his 30 year career in wildlife law enforcement Mr. Amato has taught, trained or otherwise presented material on a wide variety of wildlife and environmental topics. Mr. Amato was regularly tapped to provide training to new Fish and Wildlife Service agents at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. He annually presented Endangered Species Act topics to students at the University of Massachusetts Department Of Environmental Conservation. A recognized expert, Mr. Amato also regularly trained both government agencies and industry representatives on wildlife trade and regulatory compliance issues.
Mr. Amato has extensive experience in international training and capacity building.
Since 2004 Mr. Amato has been directly responsible for the development and delivery of nearly 30 capacity building courses directly related to counter wildlife trafficking. The majority of these have been multinational in design to not only impart new skills and techniques but to build robust networks of officers needed to address organized criminal groups involved in illegal wildlife trade. A complete and detailed list can be provided upon request. Most current courses listed below:
- Designed and delivered online (virtual) training courses for the UNODC on strengthening wildlife prosecutions in Malaysia (Mar 2021), Nepal (May 2021), India and Bangladesh (Aug 2021, Sri Lanka (Sep 2021), Vietnam (Dec 2021) and on financial investigations of wildlife and forestry crime in the Philippines (April 2021) and Thailand (Oct 2021).
- 6 Counter Transnational Organized Crime (CTOC) Courses – Lusaka, Zambia (Jun 2017), Bangkok, Thailand (Sep 2017), Brazzaville, Congo (Feb 2018), Hua Hin, Thailand (Jun 2018), Hanoi, Vietnam (Mar 2019), Yaoundé, Cameroon (Sep 2019). Over 150 law enforcement officers trained from 18 countries (5 in Asia and 13 in Africa) representing 65 different national and regional law enforcement agencies.
- 6 Joint Training Courses conducted with UNODC – 3 Risk Profiling to Enhance Interception of Illegal Wildlife Trade – Vietnam (Sep 2017), Laos PDR (Oct 2017), Cambodia (Aug 2018). 1 Crime Scene Management and Advanced Investigative Techniques for Wildlife Trafficking Cases – Cambodia (Jun 2018) and 2 Cross-border Cooperation Training Workshops – Hekou, China and Pingxiang, China (Jun 2019).
